Plum Island (72 page)

Of course, he was dead right, and that made me dead anyway, so I dived left, out of the beam of light, into the dark, and
shoulder-rolled across the floor. Tobin swung the flashlight and fired, but I was much farther across the floor than he’d
judged. In fact, I did another roll in the opposite direction as the shot echoed and covered the sound of my movement. I got
the knife out of my pants before it sliced off my dick.

The narrow beam swung wildly around the room, and now and then he’d fire blindly and the bullet would ricochet off the concrete
walls as the blast echoed into the blackness.

Once, the beam passed right over me, but by the time Tobin realized it and swung the light back, I was gone again. Playing
tag with a flashlight and bullets is not as much fun as it sounds, but it’s a lot easier than you’d think, especially in a
big space like this with no obstructions.

I felt around for the shotgun each time I did a roll or a scramble, but I never came into contact with it. Notwithstanding
my lack of firepower, the advantage was now mine, and as long as the idiot kept the light on and kept firing, I knew where
he was. Clearly, cool Freddie had lost it.

However, before he figured out that he should shut off the light, I charged like a linebacker right toward him. He heard me
coming at the last second and swung the flashlight and the pistol simultaneously toward me just as I collided with him.

He made a sound like a popping balloon and went down like a tenpin. No contest. I wrenched the pistol out of his hand easily
enough, then pulled the flashlight from him. I knelt with my knees on his chest, one hand holding the flashlight in his face,
the other hand holding my fleshing knife to his throat.

Tobin had trouble breathing but managed to say, “All right…. All right…. You win….”

“Correct.” I brought the butt of the knife down on his nose and smashed the bridge. I heard the crack and saw the blood spurting
out of his nostrils as he screamed. The screams turned to whimpers and he looked at me wide-eyed, then let out a groan. “No
… please … enough….”

“No, no, not enough. Not enough.” My second blow with the butt of the knife cracked his capped teeth, then I reversed the
knife and sliced at the base of his hair weave, and I ripped the rug off. He let out another groan, but he was in semi-shock
and wasn’t fully reacting to my nastiness. I heard myself screaming in the darkness, “You bashed her head in! You raped her!
You fucking bastard!”

“No … oh, no….”

I knew I was not rational anymore, and I should have just gotten out of there. But those images of the dead were truly lurking
in the darkness, and by this time, after the terror of the boat ride, the chase across Plum Island, the biohazard leak, and
dodging bullets in the dark, John Corey had reverted to something best kept in the dark. I smashed the butt of the knife down
on his forehead twice but couldn’t crack his skull.

Tobin let out a long, pathetic wail. “Noooo….”

I truly wanted to stand up and run out of there before I did something that was irretrievably evil, but the black heart that
lurks in all of us had awakened in me.

I reached behind me with the fleshing knife and sliced through Tobin’s pants into his lower abdomen, a deep, lateral incision
that parted the flesh and muscle and caused a rupture of his intestines out of the abdominal cavity.

Tobin screamed, but then went strangely silent and stayed motionless, as though trying to figure out what happened. He must
have felt the warmth of the blood, but otherwise his vital signs were fine and he was probably thanking God he was alive.
I would soon put an end to that.

I reached back with my right hand and grabbed a nice big handful of warm guts, which I pulled out and dragged along beside
me; then I threw the entrails into Tobin’s face.

His eyes met mine in the illumination of the flashlight and he looked at me almost quizzically. But since he had no point
of reference for the steaming stuff lying across his face, he needed a word or two from me. So I said, “Your guts.”

He screamed, and screamed again, his hands flailing at his face.

I stood, wiped my hands on my trousers, and walked away. Tobin’s screams and cries echoed in the cold, cold room.

I
wasn’t looking forward to the long walk back through the dark tunnel. Also, it’s good tactics not to go back the way you
come; someone may be waiting for you.

I looked at the opening above. A dark, stormy sky never looked so inviting. I moved to the steel structure that rose from
the floor to the ceiling of the ammunition magazine. This was, as I said, the elevator by which huge cannon shells and gunpowder
were once hoisted to the gun emplacements above, so I figured it was built right. I got up on the first crossbar and it held.
I went up another few crossbars and noticed that they were pretty rusty, but they also held.

Rain fell on me from the opening above, and Fredric Tobin’s screams assailed me from below. You’d think a guy would run out
of screams after a while. I mean, once the initial horror has passed, then a guy should get a grip on and see about stuffing
his guts back where they belong and shut up.

Anyway, the air was better the higher I got. At about fifteen feet, I could feel the wind blowing through the hole. At twenty
feet, I was at the opening and the rain was driving hard and horizontally; the storm had returned.

I saw now that the opening above was surrounded by a barbed wire fence, obviously put there to keep animals from falling into
the hole when the gun emplacements were used as animal pens. “Damn it.”

I stood on the last rung of the elevator structure, half my body out of the hole. The wind and the rain drowned out Tobin’s
screams now.

I contemplated the four-foot-high barbed wire fence that surrounded me. I could climb the fence or go back down and get out
through the tunnel. I thought about Tobin down there screaming his life out with his entrails all over the floor. And what
if he got himself under control and found his shotgun or his pistol? So, having gotten myself this far, I decided to go the
last four feet.

Pain is mostly mind over matter, so I made my brain blank and climbed up the barbed wire fence, got to the top, and leapt
down to the pavement below.

I lay there awhile catching my breath, rubbing the cuts on my hands and feet, happy that the hospital docs had given me my
tetanus booster in case the three slugs were dirty.

So, ignoring the pain of the cuts, I stood and looked around. I was in a circular artillery emplacement about thirty feet
in diameter. The emplacement was cut into the hillside and was surrounded by a shoulder-high concrete wall that had once protected
the big gun that sat here. Embedded on the concrete pavement was a steel traversing mechanism once used to swing the gun in
a 180-degree arc.

I saw on the far side of the sunken gun emplacement a concrete ramp that led up to what looked like an observation tower.
As far as I could determine, I was on the south side of the pork chop bone, and the artillery piece had pointed south, out
to sea. In fact, I could hear the waves crashing on the shore nearby.

I could see how these emplacements would make good animal pens, and that in turn reminded me that the air was filled with
plague. Not that you can easily forget something like that, but I guess I was suppressing it. Point is, I could make out the
whine of the siren if I listened hard. I could also make out the screams of Fredric Tobin—not literally, but in my mind, and
I knew I’d hear that for some time.

So, there I was—Tobin in my head, the biohazard siren in my ears, wind and water in my face, cold, shivering, thirsty, hungry,
cut up and half naked, and I was feeling on top of the world. In fact, I let out a little whoop and did a sort of jig. I yelled
into the wind, “Alive! Alive!”

Then, a little voice in my head said, “Not for long.”

I stopped doing my victory dance. “What?”

“Not for long.”

It wasn’t actually a little voice in my head; it was a voice behind me. I turned.

Up at the top of the five-foot-high wall, looking down on me, was a big figure, clad in dark rain gear with a hood so that
the face was barely visible, and the effect was sort of like the Grim Reaper standing there in the storm, probably smiling
and all that.
Creepy.
I asked, “Who the hell are you?”

The person—a man by the size and voice—didn’t reply.

I guess I felt a little foolish having been caught dancing around in the rain, making whooping sounds. But I had the strong
sense that this was the least of my problems at the moment. “Who the hell are you?”

Again, no reply. But now I saw that the person was holding something across his chest.
A standard Grim Reaper scythe?
I hoped so. I could deal with a scythe. But, no such luck. The guy had a rifle.
Shit.

I considered my options. I was at the bottom of a circular, five-foot-deep hole and someone with a rifle was standing on the
wall near the exit ramp. Basically, I was in a deep, round, tight spot. I was profoundly fucked.

The guy just stood there staring down at me from about thirty feet away—an easy shot with the rifle. He was too close to the
exit ramp for me to consider that way out. My only chance was the hole I’d just come out of, but that meant a fifteen-foot
run toward him, a dive over the barbed wire fence, and a blind plunge into the elevator opening. That would take about four
seconds, and the guy with the rifle could aim and fire twice in four seconds. But maybe the fellow meant me no harm. Maybe
it was a Red Cross worker with brandy.
Right.
I said, “So, friend, what brings you out on a night like this?”

“You.”

“Moi?”

“Yes, you. You and Fredric Tobin.”

I recognized the voice now and I said, “Well, Paul, I was just leaving.”

“Yes,” Mr. Stevens replied, “you
are
leaving.”

I didn’t like the way he said that. I assumed he was still pissed off about me cold-cocking him on his back lawn, not to mention
all the abuse I’d heaped on him. And here he was with a rifle. Life is funny sometimes.

He said again, “You will be gone soon.”

“Good. I was just passing through, and—”

“Where’s Tobin?”

“Right behind you.”

Stevens actually glanced quickly behind him, then faced me again. He said, “Two boats were spotted from the lighthouse—a Chris-Craft
and a speedboat. The Chris-Craft turned back in the Gut, the speedboat made it through.”

“Yeah, that was me in the speedboat. Just out for a spin.” I asked, “How did you know the Chris-Craft was Tobin?”

“I know his boat. I’ve been expecting him.”

“Why?”

“You know why.” He added, “My motion sensors and microphones picked up at least two people at Fort Terry, plus a vehicle.
I checked it out and here I am.” He said, “Someone murdered two firemen. You?”

“Not me.” I said, “Hey, Paul, my neck is getting stiff looking up at you and I’m cold. I’m coming up that ramp, and we’re
going back to the lab for some coffee—”

Paul Stevens raised his rifle and pointed it at me. He said, “If you move one fucking inch, I’ll kill you.”

“Understood.”

He reminded me, “I owe you for what you did to me.”

“You have to try to work through your anger in a constructive—”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Right.” In some instinctive way, I knew that Paul Stevens was more dangerous than Fredric Tobin. Tobin was a cowardly killer,
and if he sensed danger, he’d run. Stevens, I was sure, was a more natural killer, the kind of man who’d face off with you,
mano a mano. I said, “Do you know why Tobin and I are here?”

Still aiming the rifle at me, he said, “Of course, I do. Captain Kidd’s treasure.”

I said, “I can help you find the treasure.”

“No, you can’t. I have the treasure.”

Oh, my.
I said, “How did you—?”

“Do you think I’m stupid? The Gordons thought I was stupid. I knew exactly what was going on with all this idiotic archaeological
digging. I followed every move they made. I wasn’t sure who their partner was until August when Tobin arrived as a representative
of the Peconic Historical Society.”

“Good detective work. I’ll see to it that you get a government efficiency award—”

“Shut your fucking mouth.”

“Yes, sir. By the way, shouldn’t you be wearing a mask or something?”

“Why?”

“
Why?
Isn’t that the biohazard warning siren?”

“It is. It’s a test. I ordered a test. Everyone who has hurricane duty on the island is in the lab wearing biohazard gear,
going through the drill of biocontainment.”

“In other words, we’re not all going to die?”

“No. Only you are going to die.”

I was afraid he was going to say that. I informed him, in an official tone, “Whatever you may have done is not as serious
as committing murder.”

“Actually, I haven’t committed a single crime, and killing you is going to be a pleasure.”